Blame and Forgiveness
by Countess of Cobert
Summary: After Sybil's death how Robert and Cora found their way back, their views immediately following 3.05 and 3.06.
1. Chapter 1

AN: These two chapters are based on scenes I wanted to see after Sybil's death. This one was inspired by Cora's line 'let's not go through it all again' when talking about arguing over Sybil's death with Robert. This is what I imagine the first decussion was like, set immediately after the last scene of 3.05.

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><p>Cora walks up the stairs in the same graceful manner her mother had taught her to all those years ago before she was a wife. Before she was a mother. She wishes she could ascend the stairs in a way that expresses the turmoil of her mind and the empty aching of her heart. But she can't. She wants to laugh at the irony, right now when she wants to be the heart wrenching mother she's become a true Countess and finally made her mother-in-law proud. She hears the familiar voice and heavy steps behind her, the sounds used to belong to her husband. But now belong in the body of a man she doesn't know. A traitor in their mist.<p>

He can't help but notice, from his position half way down the stairs, how perfectly she walks; the sway of her hips. Her mass of dark hair contrasts perfectly with her porcelain white neck. However, it also contrasted against her coal black dress. She turns when she reaches the top to face him, in any other circumstance he would have been pleased he was the subject of her gaze. But not today. Today he knows she's only stopped so she can confront him. Confront him on the gallery where any servant may walk at any moment. She wants them all to hear. They hadn't talked it through yet, not together, but then, Sybil had been alive not twelve hours previously. Cora is beyond angry, of that Robert is sure, she's dying inside. He knew she was dying inside because he was too. He reaches out his hand to her only to watch her take two steps backwards.

"Cora, please, I'm sorry." She feels her eyes fill and and swears she stops breathing as her blood freezes, 'sorry', only 'sorry', how can a murderer only be 'sorry'?

"'Sorry' is that all? Our youngest daughter is dead, our first grandchild has no mother and you're just sorry. It figures really, you judge everything all wrong, always." Robert stares at her, he can't ever remember her shouting like that, never. But what really holds his gaze is her eyes. Where he used to find startling blue orbs that had never failed to captivate him, he now saw only grey spheres stein a sunken face, dark circles shrouding their circumference. In just a few hours Cora looked as close to death as his daughters corpse.

"I suppose you're saying that I judged Tapsell on his knighthood and how fashionable he is, rather that on whether he knew Sybil or not. Whereas, Dr Clarkson, with his list of medical mistakes knew her better?" Cora starts, did Robert just shout at her? It's been a good few years since he has shouted at her and even when he had it somehow hadn't been so harsh sounding, but then maybe it was becomes in the past when they'd argued they had been petty argument compared to this one.

"Not just that. You judged women, you judged me before you chose a wife,to see if I had enough money to save Downton." Cora pause in her narrative as she watches his face fall. Nothing, she thinks, could have hurt him more than that. Her heart doesn't ache as it used to when the tears fill his eyes. It seems her heart is unable to feel when it comes to the traitor stood before . She knows that's why she said it, to break him at the only moment she'd be able to break him- when the sight doesn't break her. "And as for Dr Clarkson's list of mistakes. He don't want to give us false hope with Matthew and as for Lavinia, that disease moves like lightening. But then, _you wouldn't know that, you never had it."_

The tears continue to coarse down his face as yet more hurt surges through his heart. It's not just Cora's new, alien, attitude towards him that hurts, he'd expected that after the events of the previous night. It's the lack of emotion she conveys as she throws venom through his heart with her tongue that really hurts. The lump in his throat rises, the half a slice of toast he had for breakfast tasting sour in his mouth.

"So, you blame me?" His voice comes as a murmur against the lump. Cora looks at him, really looks at him, for the first time since the traumatic event the night before. His face is pale and he looks ill with the guilt that rests on his shoulders. She swallows down her next hurtful remark because she can see he's sorry, really sorry. She can see he sees himself as a murderer too. But, it doesn't quite mean she can forgive him. However, it does change, or remind her, that perhaps blame doesn't totally lie with the man before her.

"No, not entirely, I blame myself somewhat. I blame myself for standing right here last night as the only person present who'd actually been through childbirth and not standing up for what I thought. What I knew. I had informed myself when I'd been pregnant of all the difficulties involved, yet, I stood here and listened to you talk about something you knew nothing about. And , I suppose that because I love you and didn't want to upset you, I didn't fight hard enough. I stood back and loved, honoured and obeyed you as I vowed I would the day we married." No lame lifts from Robert's shoulders as he hears her take some of the blame for the disaster, it only makes him feel guiltiest. Listen to Cora, of course he should have listened to her, but then it was easy to see that now after the shocking events.

"So, what do you blame me for?"

"I blame you for bringing Tapsell here and not even considering Clarkson's view. But, most of all I blame you for not trusting me. We've been married thirty two years and yet you stood here last night and ignored what I had to say as though I didn't exist. You looked at me and didn't see the woman who may know what she was on about seeing as she'd given birth to your three children. No, last night I was just a woman, an obstacle in your way. You'd set your wheels on the tracks that would led to Sybil's death and I do t think I could have changed that, even if I had fought harder." He leans against the wall as she turns away from him, his vision of her a shadowy mist as she turns and walks to her room. Her black shadow gets smaller and smaller, an insignificant spot in his vision. He slides to the floor head in his hands, back pressed against the wall. He thought he'd cried as much as was possible the night before but it seemed not. The difference was, he supposed, the night before he'd lost Sybil and had grieved for her. Now, he was grieving for his wife too. She was gone, a stranger to him. In many ways the forever is worse. Sybil was gone, never to return. But Cora was right there, she was always going to be within arms length of him, yet too far away to grab. His heart crumbled for the second time in less than twelve hours.


	2. Chapter 2

AN: Sorry this is a late update, Ive been unwell for a few days and although my mind had been going 'fanfic,fanfic' my body couldn't be bothered to get out of bed, I apologize to those of you I haven't thanked for your reviews, but they all mean an awful lot. Anyway, this one is set immediately after 3.06.

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><p>The walk from the Dower house had been silent. No words were needed as they'd cried in each other's arms digesting their daughter's fate. But now, sat on the bench, the Abbey towering behind her, Cora knows she needs to explain. She needs to explain her refusal to look at Robert, talk to him. She wants to explain her motives for snapping at him earlier, she enjoyed his flirting. But her throat closes over when her mouth opens. She knows what she wants to say, needs to say, but she can't. Fresh tears fall silently from her eyes and her heart jumps as she feels Robert's arm caress her shoulders; pulling her down to lie against his chest.<p>

He knows Cora wants to say something, it's why he pulled her towards the bench beneath the tree, he wants her to say it before it eats away at her. He assumes it's some kind of apology. An apology he doesn't want to hear but one he knows he has to sit through, otherwise she won't be able to live with herself.

As her head rests on his chest and her tears begin to slow he thinks back to her appearance in the library that morning. The look of pure terror at having to speak directly to him that had radiated from her eyes. The misty grey orbs thick with water and hard, no love anywhere to be found. If he's honest he's never seen her in a worse state apart from perhaps when she'd had Spanish flu. But yet, he'd still called her pretty. He hadn't said it in an attempt to settle their differences, he'd said it because he meant it. She looked pretty, she always would to him he supposed.

"I think you deserve an explanation as to why I've been ignoring you and making your life generally difficult since Sybil left us." The lump in her throat finally gives her an opportunity to speak but when she hears herself say her baby's name it all gets too much and she feels the water snake down her smooth cheeks. Robert wipes the tears gently from her face as they fall and kisses her hair; he takes his arm from her shoulders and rubs her sides before letting his hand rest on her hip. He's relieved when she doesn't try and brush him off.

"I don't need an explanation. You were angry with me because I listened to the wrong advice and up until an hour ago you thought the opposing advice could have saved your daughter." She feels his arm tighten around her waist hut this time she pulls away and perching on the edge of the bench turns to face him. Robert at first thinks she's going to run away but as she perches delicately on the edge of the seat he's reminded of what a perfect Countess she is, along with all her other perfections.

"I just want you to know, I never stopped loving you." Robert stares at her dumbfounded, what on earth is she on about?

"Oh, my dear, I know."

"No, you don't Robert. I let my head rule me, rather than listening to my heart." She looks up into his face, searching his eyes. Does he understand? Does he still love me? Will he ever forgive me for being so harsh? Then she feels his hands take her gloved ones and tears sting the corners of her eyes as his thumb trails to her ring finger and smooths over the two rings he placed there. "You see, my heart was always there, pounding for you; pounding for me to do all the things I never did." More tears spill over her eyes as a string of pictures haunt her mind. The night he asked to move back into her room flashes to the funeral, throughout the whole of which she'd ignored him. Those dark, tearful moments are replaced by dinner at Isobel's and how she'd snapped at him and accused him of having no heart and judging people unfairly. As that image fades his sincere compliment of that morning materialises from nowhere followed by that first argument they'd had on the stairs. She's distantly aware of the rhythmic rubbing on her back and the smell of Robert's cologne as he wraps his arms around her.

He lets her sob into his chest, he can feel his shirt becoming damp but he doesn't attempt to move her, she needs to let in out. He rubs slowly up and down her back and every so often places kisses in her hair. He's desperate to reassure her that he still loves her, as he's convinced that's one of the main things tormenting her.

A while later Cora slowly lifts her head for his sodden shirt and her eyes meet Robert's concerned ones. As he strokes her cheek her eyes begin to fill again, it seems an age since Robert had done anything so touching, but she blinks the tears back, determined to finish her explanation.

"When you asked to move back into my room, my heart was aching for me to say yes but my head told me no. And being to fool that I am I listened."

"My dear, you're not a fool, in fact, you're far from it." She smiles from beneath her eyelashes that still sparkle with droplets of water. Robert refrains from taking the hands she places on his collar in his own and kissing them. Instead, he just looks at her hoping she'll learn to forgive herself, as that is now the only obstacle in the way of her happiness.

"But, I am am a fool Robert. I couldn't so much as give you a hug or at the very least thank you when you told me I looked pretty this morning. Instead, I let my head rule me." The tears that she'd tried so hard to control course down her cheeks and she curls her fingers into his hair to steady herself. Robert feels helpless, he was sure Cora had cried enough, but it appeared not. He gently reaches up and wipes the tears from her cheeks. He can't help relishing in the way her fingers massage his scalp, when was the last time she'd done that? "Oh, my darling, I'm so sorry."

"There is no need to be. Besides I should be the one apologising, for many reasons, most notably what I said this morning about you looking pretty." Robert smirks to himself at the sudden tear free, shocked face of Cora's that appears before his eyes, he leans forward to kiss her nose. "You look gorgeous." At which point her cheeks blossom into a pink blush.

"I would say 'don't flirt with me' as I did this morning. But, the truth is, I like it when you flirt with me."

"And I like it when you kiss me."

"You really are cheeky Robert." She kisses him none-the-less and is amazed by how much she's missed his touch, his love. She moves to sit on his lap as his hands caress her waist, his tongue teasing hers. When she remembers they're in full view of the house, she reluctantly pulls away from his lips.

"Cheeky I may be. But it appears my princess likes me cheeky." She giggles before his lips claim hers again, thoughts of their nearness to the house banished from her mind.


End file.
